


Compliments to the Artist

by Whreflections



Series: Carolina verse [4]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Carolina verse, Drabble, M/M, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 12:46:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1267114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whreflections/pseuds/Whreflections
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After four very eventful years in South Carolina, Enjolras is graduating.  The end of one degree and the start of another seems a perfect to do something for himself and for Grantaire that he's been wanting to do for quite a long time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Compliments to the Artist

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jkeats](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jkeats/gifts).



> So this is a thing I probably should have posted...oh, back in like, July. I wrote this while I was in Portugal, in a hostel while I listened to people drinking out in the garden and making crazy amounts of noise and trying to focus because I wanted to get it done before I went to bed and in enough to sleep before class, lmao Ah, good times. 
> 
> Anyway, this is just a Carolina verse drabble, written for jkeats because...I cannot remember if it was because of a bad day or a sad fic, lmao BECAUSE REASONS. 
> 
> (Additionally, I am so sorry it's been so long since I've updated this verse...or any exR at all. I still love our barricade boys as much as ever, I promise, and this will all have more eventually. it really will.)

“R, wait.” 

“What, what’d I forget?”  Hell, he’d known there’d be something.  Grantaire reached up to straighten his tie self-consciously, trailing green silk through his fingers.  He hadn’t worn a goddamn tie since-

No, he couldn’t go there today.  He pressed a hand across his half tamed hair, stepped aside willingly when Enjolras hooked his hand against the inside of his elbow to pull him out of the doorway. 

“it’s nothing you forgot, but I have to show you something first.” 

“Would this have anything to do with where you vanished to this morning?”

“Perceptive of you.”  Enjolras’ fingers flicked over the buttons on his crisp white shirt, compounding Grantaire’s confusion(and reminding him that he’d never look that pressed, even if Courfeyrac _had_ been over this thing he was wearing with an iron a day or so ago). 

“Not that I’m ever against removing your shirt, but your parents-“

“Are waiting upstairs, and they can wait two minutes more for the time it takes me-“  Enjolras winced, shrugged out of the left side of his shirt to present an arm bandaged just below the shoulder. “-to show you this.” 

“The hell did you-“  But he didn’t have to ask, not really, because he knew tattoo bandages, he’d had enough himself and he’d been there to laugh and soothe when Joly was so sure his was infected 30 minutes after coming home, and that rectangle of white on Enjolras’ upper arm could be nothing else.  He knew, and so he might have stopped himself anyway, but it was the glimpse of tawny color he got when Enjolras began to peel downward that shut him up.

Grantaire had drawn his first Florida panther months before they were together, on a late night when Enjolras had spoken of recent deaths and railed at Grantaire for not listening, for the sketchbook he’d kept propped up on his knees.  He hadn’t realized Grantaire had soaked in every word, had let Enjolras’ rage mingle with his tired sorrow to produce a portrait of a creature ravaged by pain.  In Grantaire’s imagination she was the origin of her species, a mother on an eternal hunt for those who slaughtered her children.  Her eyes gleamed, her shoulders slanted uneven with her slinking lope, and though it could not be fully grasped from the frontal perspective he drew her from, had he shown her sides her heavy fur would have hung limp over ribs as prominent as piano keys. 

He couldn’t show Enjolras that night, not when he was so adamant that Grantaire hadn’t heard a word he said, but when he _did_ show him, almost a year later, Enjolras had traced her edges with reverent eyes, kissed Grantaire’s palm and murmured, _Draw her again for me_.  _Please._

And there she was, sandy soft with her lined eyes, her sleek grace accented rather than marred by the effect of splatters of paint that had been embellished along her edges.  All along her image, Enjolras skin puffed out, reddened by the work of the gun and the ink, and Grantaire only just stopped himself from pressing his fingers to the surface.  They’d talked about Enjolras getting a tattoo but this was-

This was _her_ , this was _his_ art, a piece of his fucking soul on Enjolras’ pale skin where anyone might see, where his parents might-

“It’s alright, isn’t it?  I know, it’s your art and I should have asked first but I thought-“

Grantaire gripped the ends of the tie that hung disconnected around the collar of Enjolras’ open shirt and kissed him, a mess of eagerness, teeth bumping against Enjolras’ lip before he caught up and opened for him.  The brush of Enjolras’ tongue was always heady, enough to make him stagger and they did, balance shifting as they leaned back toward the wall, toward a corner that hit Grantaire’s spine all wrong but how could that fucking matter?  How could it matter, because Enjolras was kissing him, his half bared chest pressing hot against the front of Grantaire’s shirt and if he’d opened his eyes(he couldn’t, not with Enjolras whimpering into his mouth at the slide of his tongue), if he _had_ he’d have seen his panther on Enjolras’ arm in solid ink, seen skin that burned as it learned to accept his presence. 

“You’re unbelievable.” 

“It’s ok?”

Grantaire laughed, giddy and breathless, fingers clenching around scarlet fabric to hold Enjolras right fucking there, right there where their breath mingled hot against wet lips. 

“Fuck, it’s ok.  It’s more than ok.  I can’t believe you; what if they-“

“I’ll tell them to compliment the artist.” 

Grantaire’s laughter might have carried far enough to echo up the stairs, might have reached _their_ ears, might have made them wonder what the two of them were _doing_ down there that was taking so long.  It might’ve, but Grantaire couldn’t scrape up the fucks to care. 


End file.
